It was Wednesday on the road to El Progresso in the Salvadoran province of Usulután. To the right of the highway lay the body of a woman in her late 20s dressed in a pink polyester dress. Between her matted hair and nose was a gaping hole. One of her legs was twisted sideways, her brown thighs smeared with blood.

When the last rock was swept into the house and the brooms were put away last week in Brandon, Man., Al Hackner’s rink had become the 53rd Canadian Brier champion. This week the Thunder Bay, Ont., foursome heads to the German Alps town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen for the Air Canada Silver Broom world championships, while across the mountains in Geneva Colleen Jones and her Nova Scotia rink go for the women’s world championship.By Hal Quinn7 min

With cameras in tow, they follow a mammoth backhoe as it carves out a sewage trench at the 5,000-year-old Tsimshian Indian site near Prince Rupert, B.C. Under the gaze of an impatient developer in a cordoned-off area in Dawson, they labor to salvage a 19th-century prospector’s shack.By Shona McKay7 min

It seems that one either gets used to Living Without the Pill (Cover, March 15) or dies taking it. I had no idea of its many side effects. Too bad I had to be a user for three years. Now my problem is what lies ahead! —CHRISTINE PICHE, Gloucester, Ont.

Even though the queues began forming in the balmy early-morning hours—as soon as the midnight-to-6 a.m. curfew ended—the shops in the capital city of Luanda didn't start to open until 10 a.m. For Angolans, just obtaining simple niecessixties such as salt, soap and bread remains a major effort.By Robert A. Manning6 min

In any other country it would hardly seem appropriate for the man who had just been handed a money-spinning movie machine to declare the moment merely “kind of fun.” After all, Don MacPherson had become the capo di tutti capi, the boss of all bosses, in the Canadian film industry.By Ian Anderson, Gordon Legge5 min

All the known laws of nature are against it, but the Nova Scotia New Democratic Party seems to be going up and down at the same time. Or, as party worker Serena Renner put it after last fall’s election: “It’s the biggest win we’ve ever had. We’ve got two months to clear out.”By Michael Clugston5 min

Central America’s times of tranquillity have been almost as rare as its pitifully few periods of general prosperity. Still, when independence from Spain was finally granted in 1821, it came quietly, with only a mild protest from a faltering colonial power.By ANNE NELSON5 min

King Saud University in Riyadh may not be in the same lofty academic league as Oxford or Harvard, but its bulging coffers are not without attractions to the financially strapped. As a result, when university administrators from the state-run Saudi Arabian University accepted an invitation to visit their poorer cousins at the University of Toronto last year, the doors of U of T’s dilapidated buildings swung open in welcome.

In 1979 a revolution took place in El Salvador. This piece of history is rarely mentioned by Canadian reporters covering that country’s civil war. Indeed, this selective amnesia is the subject for a column all of its own, but if one genuinely wants to arrive at a morally acceptable position on Central American policy, it is a useful exercise to include such memory lapses in assessing Central American events.By Barbara Amiel4 min

Every Issue. Ever.

The Complete Maclean’s Archive

Every Issue. Ever.

The story you want is part of the Maclean’s Archives. To access it, log in here or sign up for your free 30-day trial.
Experience anything and everything Maclean's has ever published — over 3,500 issues and 150,000 articles, images and advertisements — since 1905. Browse on your own, or explore our curated collections and timely recommendations.WATCH THIS VIDEO for highlights of everything the Maclean's Archives has to offer.